Milwaukee police overtime surpassed $26 million in 2022, as officials point to understaffing and crime rates

Milwaukee Police Department overtime surpassed $26 million in 2022, with 11 police officers and sergeants each making more than $100,000 in overtime alone, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analysis found.

Those employees took home between $103,195 and $129,269 in overtime, with their total annual compensation falling between $205,000 and $239,100, according to data from the city Comptroller's Office.

Overall, the police department saw a 13% rise in overtime spending from 2019 to 2022, the most recent year of data available.

Department leaders cautioned that not all of the overtime was paid by taxpayers because of agreements the city struck with private entities that pay for officers who volunteer to provide security at their venues. The rise in overtime at least partially reflects events and venues reopening as the coronavirus pandemic waned, according to police.

In addition to those events, department leaders traced the increase to the historic rise in homicides in Milwaukee, a drop in police staffing and backlogs across the justice system caused by the pandemic.

"It isn't just a bunch of cops sitting around collecting this extra money," police Chief of Staff Heather Hough said. "There are legitimate reasons behind the overtime expenses, and it's constantly monitored in a number of different ways."

Between 2019 and 2022, the Police Department alone made up between 54% and 60% of the total overtime paid to city workers. The Milwaukee Fire Department, which also saw overtime rise over those four years, made up another 24% to 31% of total overtime paid out.

Mayor Cavalier Johnson said members of the police and fire departments work "extremely, extremely hard." Many, he said, are working significant amounts of overtime because there are not enough staff to carry the workload during regular shifts.

"They're earning every single cent that they get," said Johnson.

Still, he said, the overtime figures speak to the need to increase the number of sworn members to avoid burnout and reduce stress on the overtime budget. Those staffing increases are beginning this year, as required by a state law that went into effect in 2023, known as Act 12.

Others, however, rejected the calculation that more police would equate to less overtime and challenged the assessment that police were the best way to spend the city's resources.

"Police will always say they need more, and I think we’ve seen that throughout budget cycles," said Devin Anderson, campaign and membership director at the African American Roundtable.

Instead, he said, it was important to assess what investments make a community safe and consider the police budget in relation to other spending choices.

He compared the $26 million in police overtime in 2022 to the $29.4 million library budget for 2024, saying libraries provide community hubs in addition to resources like computers to find jobs, free meeting rooms and more.

"In a vacuum, if you ask people do they want more police, I think a lot of people would say yes," he said. "But, actually, if you confine that choice — do you want more police at the expense of not having libraries, do you want more police at the expense of X, Y and Z — I think those choices become inherently different and different types of conversations that I think we need to have."

Milwaukee police say 'extension-of-duty' situations are primary driver of overtime

Police department overtime has fluctuated in recent years — dropping in 2020 and 2021 before jumping in 2022.

During that time, outside organizations paid for roughly 19% of police overtime spending each year, with the exception of 2020, according to a Journal Sentinel analysis of data from the city's Legislative Reference Bureau and police.

In 2020, total police overtime, including overtime reimbursed by outside organizations, fell sharply. At the same time, the overtime funded by taxpayers increased.

That divergence is likely a reflection of a year when pandemic event cancellations reduced the need for overtime typically reimbursed by private organizations, even as police still had to spend time planning and staffing what remained of the 2020 Democratic National Convention downtown, officials said.

Meanwhile, police faced mass protests after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. The department mandated overtime and took away off-days when the unrest was taking place, Assistant Police Chief Nicole Waldner told the Journal Sentinel.

Violence also rose in the city, launching what would become three-plus years of record homicide deaths. Both homicides and nonfatal shootings in Milwaukee declined in 2023.

On top of that, the department's staff was shrinking nearly every pay period of 2020, according to data provided by police.

"We've been kind of behind the eight ball since then," Waldner said. "I feel like we're in a constant game of catch-up since 2020."

A personnel study released last year found Milwaukee police were short-staffed and short on time for proactive police work, especially in districts with the highest call volumes.

Violent crime exhausts the most department resources.

If a crime happens at the end of a shift, officers called to respond can't simply leave, Hough said. There are also duties that the public doesn't see, including writing case reports about the incident.

Data provided by the Police Department shows such extension-of-duty situations as the primary driver of the department's overtime in each of the four years analyzed.

Patrol officers, the first on scene to incidents such as shootings and homicides, far outpaced other divisions in extension-of-duty overtime.

A 2022 audit by the city Comptroller's Office noted that the nature of police work leads to overtime.

The audit found 13 sworn members of the department in 2021 with more than 750 hours of extension-of-duty overtime, which was attributed to them being on a specialized task force or special detail, and assignment to the Criminal Investigation Bureau's Homicide Division. Police administration was able to provide reasonable justification for the higher levels of overtime for these individuals, the audit states.

Hough said members of the department are required to document their reasons for using overtime so management can monitor its use. She added that there are mechanisms to discipline anyone who were to abuse overtime.

Backlogs in other parts of justice system also driving up police overtime

Waldner and Hough also attributed the rise in patrol overtime to officers waiting for hours to testify at the Milwaukee County Courthouse due to a pandemic-induced backlog of cases.

Officers are now getting subpoenas to make appearances in cases that had not moved forward at the height of the pandemic, Hough said. While court overtime dropped from $2.5 million in 2019 to a low of $772,500 in 2020, it crept back up to more than $1.1 million in 2021 and increased to $1.7 million in 2022, according to police data.

The comptroller's audit noted court was a cause for overtime, stating that the backlog of cases in Milwaukee County courts "will have a significant financial impact to resolve."

Hough also cited increased medical runs as another task that took up officers' time.

Strains on the Milwaukee County Jail's capacity to hold people in custody forced police to hold people in custody at police district stations instead. That made police responsible for taking those people to the hospital for needs as routine as getting medication for chronic health problems, Waldner said.

The department sought to address that challenge by hiring an in-house clinician to do rounds and administer medications to people in police custody.

To ensure that district stations don't run out of room, police also implemented a process for releasing people on bail directly from the police districts with the approval of a court commissioner instead of taking them to the jail, Hough said.

Increasing number of police and firefighters making at least $100,000 in overtime

While in 2019 no city worker received $100,000 in overtime, that number crept up over the years that followed.

In 2020, police officer Jutiki X was the only employee to pass that threshold, receiving $101,892 in overtime and more than $192,600 in total compensation.

In 2021, five members of the police and fire departments each made more than $100,000 in overtime. The most overtime, at $132,909, went to police Sgt. Marcin Pagacz, who also made the most of any city employee in total compensation that year at more than $237,600.

In 2022, Pagacz remained in the top spot, while the number of employees in the police and fire departments taking home more than $100,000 in overtime rose to 13.

The Police Department said the officers would not be commenting on their pay.

Waldner said she expected that many of those making such significant sums were working special events, though there are also limits on how much overtime an officer can voluntarily take on for events.

Waldner said there are special events that the police department struggles to get officers to sign up for because they are tired.

"I honestly feel like we have more overtime than we can get people to work right now," Waldner said.

Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski said overtime pay at the Fire Department represents employees' "enormous investment" of time and energy in the city at a time of severe staffing shortages. His department has been mandating overtime shifts to ensure it can meet required daily minimum staffing levels, Lipski said.

"Every 24-hour shift that they're working is 24 hours they're not with their family, not getting any sort of rest and rehabilitation, 24 hours that they're completely exposed to a still-not-yet controlled violent crime problem, reckless driving problem, on top of everything else," he said.

Milwaukee police and fire staffing to increase in 2024

The city is set to increase police and fire department staffing this year, the result of the new reality imposed by Act 12.

The state law passed last summer allowed Milwaukee to enact a 2% local sales tax that went into effect Jan. 1 and will generate revenue to avert major cuts to services like police, fire and libraries. But the law also created financial penalties if the city does not maintain and ultimately increase its police and fire department staffing.

Johnson said his goal is to comply with the staffing requirements in the new law and provide "the appropriate level of public safety in Milwaukee" while avoiding putting too much strain on the city's budget.

He did not provide a specific number of police officers he believed would allow the city to reach that goal.

"I want to abide by the law. I want to increase the numbers. Those are my commitments. ... I think it's good for the department, I think it's good for morale, I think it's good for not burning police officers and firefighters out," Johnson said. "But I also don't want to be in a position where we're trapped and we're not able to pay the bills that we've got. That's the balance."

The 2024 adopted budget will increase the number of sworn Milwaukee Police Department members by about 15 officers, after retirements are taken into account, bringing the average sworn strength to 1,645 over the course of the year.

Milwaukee Fire Department daily staffing will rise from 192 to 198. Four of those additional positions are to be assigned to a fire engine that will be put back into service and the remaining two to a new paramedic unit.

Alison Dirr can be reached at adirr@jrn.com. Andrew Hahn can be reached at ahahn@gannett.com

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee police overtime rose in 2022, surpassing $26 million